


unlordly conduct

by digitalfairy



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Four Lords side story spoilers, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-25 07:00:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17720372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/digitalfairy/pseuds/digitalfairy
Summary: The Warrior of Light helped the Four Lords seal Koryu's endless fury away again, so her task is done, but no one feels like saying their goodbyes just yet. The savior of two realms still seems to desire their companionship, and each of them is fascinated by her in their own ways. Their own... conflicting ways.





	unlordly conduct

“I’m afraid I don’t follow.” Byakko scratches his jowl with a hind leg disinterestedly.

“The one who quelled our fury. She does not speak plainly of it, but I suspect she harbors feelings for me,” Seiryu rears up as nobly as a serpent can. “I come seeking advice. She is millennia my junior and understands not what that entails.”

“Ask Suzaku, then.” The great white tiger fixes Seiryu with an exasperated glare. “She has the most experience with such matters.”

“Suzaku is assisting Soroban in his training at present. I am unsure when they will return, but I  _ am _ sure when the Warrior will. This evening.”

“She is coming back again so soon?” There’s slightly too much interest in Byakko’s tone all of a sudden. “What is left for her here, now that her task is complete? Neither Koryu nor any of our araitamas will stir appreciably in her lifetime.”

“Precisely why I suspect she desires my company. One does not go malms out of one’s way and brave molten rock for a simple social call, and her words of late could quite easily be read as flirtatious.”

“Then what galls you? Indulge her. Indulge yourself. A bit of harmless fun, to while away a few of her empty bells.” Byakko licks his chops. “Don’t tell me you have come to reciprocate her attachment? You  _ really _ ought to speak with Suzaku in that case.”

* * *

“Still nothing.” Soroban slumps, abandoning his pose of prayer. “And Genbu’s guidance is growing fainter and harder to understand by the day. He can’t even speak with my mouth anymore.”

“You are distracted and impatient,” Suzaku observes. “If a bell of meditation is insufficient, you must next devote two bells. If two bells pass and still it eludes you, four.” Her crimson plumage sheds sparks as she descends from the tree and alights beside him.

“At this rate I’ll expire of boredom first.” He sighs and sits down on the ground cross-legged. “I at least want to have something to show the Warrior when she returns this evening.” The Kojin eyes the sun. It has halfway descended from its peak already.

“Put her out of your mind,” Suzaku orders. “Such attachments can only bring pain.” Her beady eyes look down.

“I-it’s nothing like that!” Soroban waves his arms emphatically. “I just want to show her I’m making progress. She’s so encouraging, and seems really interested, and…” He groans and covers his face. “Okay, maybe it is something like that,” he admits, in a very small voice.

* * *

“It feels callous to engage in a mere tryst when she might feel something more. And I fear the eventual sting of losing her,” Seiryu admits.

“What makes you think she wouldn’t be satisfied with ‘a mere tryst’?” Byakko’s tail lashes with amusement. “How many years have you gone without intimacy, old friend?”

Seiryu bristles. “A wholly inappropriate question.”

“An answer despite yourself,” comes the rejoinder.

“And how dare you speak so freely on her behalf. You would accuse her of merely lusting after me?”

“It is no accusation.” Byakko sits back on his haunches again, pawing at one of his ears to clean it. “She has demonstrated particular tastes.”

Seiryu recoils. “You don’t mean...”

* * *

“Do I really have to explain to you why you must  _ forget _ this attachment?” Suzaku shrills, feathers ruffled.

“You don’t! And I really wish you’d let me handle that later!” Soroban takes several deep breaths. “I’m sorry for shouting. It’s just… this whole immortality thing is really starting to hit home. Only once we faced Koryu did I really understand what I’d gotten myself into.” He turns to the crimson bird, beady eyes wide with fear. “Suzaku, I’m scared. Scared to outlive everyone I’ve grown close to. Everyone I  _ will _ grow close to.”

She can’t keep berating a face like that. “Gen - no, Soroban. It is not wrong to love. To feel for them. It is right to, in fact. But you must accept that you will eventually lose them. I could not accept that and I endured countless years of agony because of my weakness.”

“All I hear when you say that is I’ll suffer that same torment. I’m nowhere near as strong as you.”

“You are stronger than you think.” Suzaku struts around to stand opposite him.

“And you’re stronger than I know.” Soroban looks up at the sky, avoiding her gaze. “I can’t… I don’t want to push her away just for my sake. I don’t want to ruin her own happiness. But I also don’t want to suffer for it.”

Suzaku listens to his words and lowers her head. She sees so much of her younger, naive self in him. “I must admit, for all my talk, I harbor my own interest in the Warrior of Light. Tenzen appeared beside her when Koryu threatened us. Their fighting spirit was one and the same. It was indeed, if you will pardon the turn of phrase, auspicious, and I cannot believe it was simply a coincidence. There is some connection there and I am determined to understand it.” She sighs. “Even now, I still cannot let him go. Any chance I can find to possibly see my beloved again.”

* * *

“I think  _ you _ are the one pining, friend.” Byakko shakes his pelt.

“Do not try to change the subject.” The snake’s tone is ice. “There is only one way she could have ‘demonstrated’ such tastes to you, but I cannot bring myself to believe what you imply.  _ You?  _ Why _ you?! _ ”

“She made the advance.” A languid shrug. “I must have been in an accommodating mood. I do not regret indulging her.”

Seiryu’s form shudders and pulses with dark blue aether. As if suddenly molting, his enormous true body erupts from within him, flowing sinuously into the air above Byakko to glare fiercely at him from on high. “The absolute  _ nerve _ of you.”

“Jealous?” Byakko stands up on his haunches and unfolds his own auspicious form into being, now glaring back with two sets of eyes. “You have little cause to be. If she indeed has been flirting with you, she will surely make a proper overture this time. Simply welcome her into your embrace, if you are truly so inclined.” His booming voice echoes in the temple’s cave.

“Must you shout it to the heavens?” Seiryu hisses. Their extremely noticeable argument has begun drawing glances from the other ancient creatures who call the depths of Hell’s Lid home. “I came to you in confidence.”

* * *

“You really do still feel for him, don’t you.” Soroban’s voice is quiet, either exhausted or reverent.

“Of course. I shall never forget Tenzen as long as I live.”

“Another thing that separates me from the rest of you.” Soroban sighs. “I’ve absorbed some of Genbu’s memories, but… it doesn’t feel real to me, not like it must to you. I still don’t feel like I know anything about the man.”

Suzaku preens her plumage, straightening an out-of-place feather. “Unlike many of the other qualities you have yet to develop, admiration for the man who once united us is not necessarily a requirement for lordship.” She finally settles down, folding her skinny legs under her and hiding her talons. “Perhaps it is a virtue, after all. You are not trapped in the past as I am.”

“You still need closure, don’t you,” Soroban muses. This earns a quirk of the head from the fiery bird - the remark was unlike him, and she wonders if Genbu’s influence was in fact so faint as he claimed.

“I fear I do,” she agrees. “Ugh, I thought that after the warrior fought to quell me I could finally let go, but seeing him again brought back my feelings as if nothing at all had happened.”

“I’m sure he would be proud of you, for coming this far without him.” There’s definitely a different timbre to his speech this time, and Suzaku raises her eyes to meet his.

“Genbu?”

“Sort of,” Soroban says, in his own voice. “It’s not like it was before. Does this mean we’re closer to being one?”

“It must.” The avian auspice is suddenly distracted. She also misses the old turtle, even though she knows he isn’t truly lost to her.

“Finally my training yields results. If nothing else, that is motivation to continue.” The Kojin-who-is-no-longer-just-a-Kojin stands. He offers her a hand up, a gesture so out-of-place that the bird can’t help but chirp a musical laugh. After a moment of confusion, he joins her in chuckling at himself, and the tension is broken.

* * *

Byakko glances around, noting the inquisitive stares of weasels and racoons and dogs. “Begone,” he booms, “This does not concern you.”

The lesser auspices turn tail and flee out of earshot. Save one: a single mongoose, one of the temple’s guards, remains. She fixes Seiryu with a nervous but determined glare. “It isn’t like you to hesitate for fear of consequence, my lord! If you’ll forgive my impertinence, it might be best just to go for it!”

The snake’s expression darkens, and he looms angrily over the smaller animal. Feeling Byakko’s head-hand close its jaws as gently as it is able to around his shoulder, however, Seiryu recedes. “The foolishness of youth,” is all he answers with, much of the venom gone from his tone. “It is never that simple.” Seiryu watches the mongoose go, sighing.

Byakko grunts agreement, a sound Seiryu isn’t expecting. “It is not. But do not shy away from a task simply because it is a challenge.” When the serpent looks back at him, he has already shrunk back down to his normal size.

“Task is a strange word for the course of action you suggest,” Seiryu spits, but he too returns to the form of a common serpent. “And do not make some smug retort about her being a handful or whatever you mean to say,” he adds, before Byakko can respond. “I want no more details of your… encounter.”

“Fine,” Byakko rumbles, sitting back down. “Have you decided yet how you will handle this?”

Seiryu turns his slitted eyes toward the cave’s entrance. “She and I will decide together.” 

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be another sexy piece but it turned into feelings instead


End file.
